Saudade
by jae-vous
Summary: She knew it was foolish before and she is aware that it was foolish now.


_**Don't give me days off from school. Because things like this happen.**_

_**jae**_

* * *

She knew it was foolish before and she is aware that it was foolish now. The sky outside the bay window matches the deep color of the rolling sea, and the echoing sound of the Mediterranean tide distantly reaches the bedroom they lay tangled in.

She lays awake, her skin twisted with his body under the quilt they'd uncovered from a dusty trunk that rests in front of the old, double bed. His skin is warm, suffocating around her, but in the good kind of way that she has no intention of escaping. The soft sound of his steady breathing is the only thing that keeps her heart rate from picking up and the panic that threatens to choke her at bay, and she breathes deeply each time his warm breath fans across the back of her neck.

His hand remains anchored on her bare hip, and she can feel the bruise that's beginning to form from his possessive grip earlier in the night. The marks he so often leaves don't normally distress her, but she knows she will regret the shadow of this touch for the days that will follow; if only because no more reminders of him will follow.

Her eyes roam the room, the moonlight highlighting at the fallout from the nights' actions. She sees where Tony's suit was tossed, and the rest of his clothes lay in a heap on the floor, miles from the bed. It had happened within seconds after his hesitant knock sounded on the door; she had pulled him in and wrinkled cotton had been pulled apart as fast as her self control.

A soft mumbling against her skin catches her attention, and he mumbles incoherently for several moments for the sound of her name escapes his lips.

_"…Ziva…."_ He exhales softly, and she tightens her grip around the hand splayed across her stomach, fighting the tears that well in her eyes.

He wasn't supposed to find her. But if she's honest with herself, if she hadn't wanted to be found by him, he wouldn't have been able to track her down. But the slip in her weakness was not something she could afford again, and she'd laid awake the entirety of the night, wondering for all of the world how they'd even begin to part the other.

She knew the only way he'd ever leave now is if she cut the bond that anchored him to her, far beyond salvaging.

A vibrating rumble picks up somewhere across the room. She jerks slightly, glancing toward the pile of clothes bathed in moonlight. Carefully extracting herself and twisting from his possessive hold, the bed dips as she crawls across the sheets, dropping onto the floor with bare feet and bared skin. She quickly bends to grasp the sheet that had slipped to the floor, wrapping it around herself and reaching the the source of the disruption a beat before the vibrating ceased. The smell of his Armani and the distinct scent of Tony lingers in the air as she searches through the clothes, and she glances only briefly at the screen once it's liberated, pressing it immediately to her ear.

"Gibbs," she whispers, glancing backward over her shoulder at her still slumbering partner.

_"He's safe."_ It's a statement, an assumption. She exhales deeply across the line, and her exhaustion is tangible through the miles that separate their connection.

"Yes. He arrived earlier in the evening." And she's thankful she must keep her tone hushed, because it masks just how unsteady her voice would be.

There's a pause over the line, and a thousand silent questions are answered before he speaks again.

_"Try not to send him home in pieces."_ He pauses for a beat, debating whether to continue. _"If you keep one, he isn't gonna stay together."_

Ziva clutches the sheet tighter to her chest, and the tears fall now because he's heard what she doesn't say loud and clear, in the way two people have ever known how to do with her.

And she's speaking with one and watching the other.

He knows she won't be coming home, just as he knew his agent had come here, intending to bring her back.

The silence grows longer as her thoughts become more tangled.

Of all the people she was prepared to let go of in her life, she had never planned on letting go of either of them.

A wave crashes loudly, a tear falls, and Tony's voice mumbles from beneath the quilt.

_"Come back to bed."_ His voice rumbles lowly, feet away, stretching a hand out blindly across the space she'd abandoned.

Ziva's breath catches, and Gibbs voice fills her ear once more.

_"Go, Ziver. Get some sleep."_ He breaks the connection, and Ziva remains holding the phone to her ear for a few beats, before finally dropping her hand and letting the phone slip to tumble onto the ruffled clothes.

Tony sits up across the room, finally, beckoning her over with sleepy eyes and an intimate smile.

His eyes watch her as she wipes her face blank, buries her pain in the way she's long mastered, and his gaze darkens as she drops the sheet to the floor, moving slowly towards his awaiting arms.


End file.
